Keeping an Epilepsy Diary for your Pet
Does your dog or cat suffer from epilepsy? If so your vet has likely asked you to keep a diary of seizures. This helps your vet to make decisions about treatment. It may be if seizures are infrequent your vet may suggest a wait and see approach rather than medication. If your dog has been prescribed medication your vet will need to see if seizure frequency has been reduced, and to keep an eye on this over time, as unfortunately often medications become less effective over a period of time and dose changes, or a second medication may need to be added. The better quality of information you record the more your vet or specialist has to go on when making these decisions. Indeed sometimes it seems getting the medication schedule right for your dog or cat is as much trial and error as anything.
This leaves owners with a problem, especially if your pet has been newly diagnosed, there is an awful lot to take in at the beginning. Usually owners will write down when seizures happen on a calendar or in a notebook. But a better way to record all the information is in a dedicated seizure journal. The Canine Epilepsy Journal and Feline Epilepsy Journal are both specialised medical journals designed to help with this task. They will walk you through all the information that you need to record. Each seizure (or cluster) is recorded on dedicated and detailed seizure log pages. These allow you to record things like what time of day the seizure happened, what rescue medication you gave, if you suspected any particular triggers, and how long it took your pet to recover. If your pet is newly having seizures the information you give here can help your vet figure out what kind of seizures they are without you having to know any medical terms.
As well as recording the details of individual seizures the journals include a year to view calendar, covering several years, which allows you to easily spot frequency. Are seizures happening more or less frequently? Is there a regular interval inbetween them? You will be able to see at a glance, and there are plenty of pages so you can fill in historical records to help you build up a picture of what is happening.
Finally the journal includes a medication history section. If your pet has been prescribed medication for epilepsy you are likely on a strict timed schedule dosing perhaps multiple times per day. This section allows you to record exactly what, how much and when of each medication. You can also update every time there is a dose change, and record any side effects or improvements you notice. This means if several people are responsibel for giving your dog or cat medication, or if others (relatives, kennels or cattery) are taking care of your pet while you are away, they can see quickly what the current dosing schedule is.
If your cat or dog has been diagnosed with epilepsy a specialised journal can make your life, and your vet’s life much easier.
Both are available on Amazon.